Fortune
by Soepkip
Summary: It is not Kakashi who takes in the recently orphaned Naruto, nor is it Jiraiya or Tsunade or even the Sandaime himself. It is not one of Kushina's friends either. Because if there is one man in the whole of Konohagakure who cannot stand injustice of any kind it is the mighty Green Beast himself; Gai.
1. act I infancy

**Certain liberties with canon have been made; consider yourselves warned. I write 'em as I see 'em and I have a love of fleshing out characters in my own weird way. Serious crack awaits.**

* * *

 **act I**

 **Infancy**

The baby is crying and there are dozens of people milling about, yet none stop to comfort the boy.

Gai watches from where one of the nurses is wrapping bandages around the superficial cut on his upper bicep, the antiseptic she'd rubbed on minutes before still left a dull stinging sensation but he could push that to the back of his mind. The injury was minor, a day of adjusted training and he would be back in the full swing of things. This he could ignore.

The crying, however, he could not.

Jinchuuriki, such an ugly word for such a noble purpose. The baby squirming in the see-through crib is what keeps them safe, what keeps the monster that just a day ago nearly razed their beautiful village to the ground locked away inside him. Such a burden on such young shoulders. He doesn't quite regard the baby as a hero but he certainly does not see him as the monsters the people around him seem so happy to write him off as. The yondaime was the hero, this baby his legacy.

He doesn't know what compels him to stand up –the nurse had since finished and moved away to attend to the other low-priority patients- and scoop the kid up in his arms. He's a chubby little red-faced thing with wisps of blonde hair on his head and thin lines on his cheeks. The fox, he thinks, or perhaps an ironic quirk of fate.

The flare of chakra to his side is not what alerts them to the ANBU keeping watch, he'd noticed them since he first stepped into the hospital, but he acknowledges the warning nevertheless.

It does not stop him from ignoring it and cradling the boy closer to his chest and rocking him a little, slowly, mindful of soft skulls and fragile necks. It makes the baby stop crying and peer up at him with the brightest blue eyes Gai had ever seen, be it on a baby or otherwise.

"Yosh, little man," he whispers, falling back in the speech he knows makes children laugh and adults think him crazy. "Let's stop that crying and try for a youthful smile instead, there you go-"

The buzz and chatter of people at work fades around him, the steady stream of nurses and doctors and patients that had been passing him by now seem to veer around him with as wide a bend they can make or have stopped to stare at him. He pays them no mind, ignoring them like they ignored this innocent little boy just seconds ago, and continues to babble mindlessly at the baby.

"Youthful little flower," he prattles, giving the boy his best and most shiny grin. "No, not a flower, a big, strong mountain? A shining beacon of youth? A most youthful, little hurricane?"

The baby opens and closes his mouth and blinks up at him, he takes it as approval.

"Put that down."

It's not a nurse but a chuunin, her flak jacket bloody and both her arms and head are covered in bandages. He guesses she's a little older than him, not by the lines on her face but by the width of her hips and the hate in her eyes. Skin you fake, callouses you can mask and appearances can be changed. Eyes, he's found, cannot. Nor can bones, for that matter, and he's as familiar with those as any trained shinobi. He noticed the way she said _that_ , not _him_ , and how she had sneered at the baby in his arms while she did. It takes him less than a second to make up his mind.

There is steel in his voice and anger coiling low in his gut when he answers and he levels her with a long, hard look. "Make me."

 **FORTUNE**

 **act I**

The baby's name is Naruto, Uzumaki Naruto, and there is the thinly veiled threat of certain death hanging above Gai's head should little Naruto ever come to harm. That said, the Sandaime had smiled and given him approval to take care of the boy. He's glad of it, the looks and stares had only worsened on their trip to the thankfully unharmed Hokage Tower. He couldn't help but think of what would happen should the Hokage refuse and order him to leave the baby be. Then what? Naruto would be placed in an orphanage or some such, left to the care of civilians who –judging by the ones he'd seen- all seemed to hate him.

So now he has a child, unquestionably the most important child in the entire village, and no idea how to take care of it. Him. Of him. Naruto is an innocent little boy and he'd rather shove a kunai through his own throat than ever come to regard him like the others do. Like a thing, a monster, or perhaps; a weapon.

"I promise you, little Naruto-kun," he whispers to the sleeping baby, "I'll never treat you like you're not a perfectly normal, youthful little hurricane. And if I don't I promise to-"

To what? Climb the Hokage Mountain on his hands? Run two-hundred laps around Konoha? Perform a thousand sit-ups while balancing over an active volcano? What does one do when he breaks his promise to be a good caregiver, a good parent?

"You can decide my punishment," is what he ends up saying to little Naruto, "you and Sandaime-sama both."

 **FORTUNE**

 **act I**

It takes him a week to scrounge up supplies from the recovering village. He gathers them one by one in order of perceived importance. A crib, bottles, formula. He makes do with his old shirts to create nappies and is immensely relieved when he finds a pack of them at the local store once it opens its doors again. Once he has those he takes his time finding the non-essentials. He doesn't want Naruto to have just any stuffed animal, no, his little youthful hurricane will get a stuffed tortoise or else he will do two-thousand push-ups with Naruto on his back!

He buys bright shirts and soft overalls and matching caps and booties. He doesn't get a stroller but once he sees the slings offering 'Full mobility and guaranteed infant safety for a bargain price!' he is sold. When they have one that matches his suit he is in love. He runs home and collects Naruto from his ANBU watchers and proceeds to do the remainder of his groceries shopping with the sleeping infant tucked securely against his chest.

When a shopkeeper stutters that they are out of tomatoes he thinks nothing of it and asks if they have cucumbers instead. When the old man says they don't have that either he grows suspicious. When he denies having any bananas in stock is when Gai puts his hands on the counter and leans forward with a smile. The wood cracks under the controlled force of his strength and it would be so easy to break the thing that Gai considers it. He doesn't in the end because of the baby strapped to his chest, his most precious little person that could very well be harmed by the shrapnel should he obliterate the counter. He has the utmost faith in his capabilities as jounin of Konoha but Naruto he will not risk. Not now, not ever.

"Excuse me, did I hear that right? You told me, a respected jounin of Konoha, that you had no bananas? I didn't quite catch your words; I was a bit occupied with my youthful son here. I do so hope that you still have some bananas left."

The man glances at Naruto and then his gaze shifts upwards and his eyes widen. His pupils contract and Gai catches the tremble in his hands when he disappears into the back room only to return with a bundle of bananas a minute later.

"Oh g-goodness, s-shinobi-san, I did have one set left in the back. You may even have it at a d-discount price-"

He pays for the bananas, leaves and vows to never visit the store again.

(it is the first time he calls Naruto his son, it isn't the last)

 **FORTUNE**

 **act I**

Naruto has been with him for three weeks when Kakashi visits. That is took so long is disconcerting but he knows his friend had been out of the village for all three of them. Kakashi is a formidable jounin already and now is when Konoha needs to appear strong. Now is when it needs its ninja out and about, in the public eye, taking whatever mission they can. Now is when it needs its legendary copy ninja, master of over a thousand jutsu, flashing his sharingan eye at everyone and their neighbour to remind them that Konoha is still at the top of its game.

So when Kakashi does come Gai is not at all insulted at how long it took.

He doesn't bother with tea or even coffee (which is a bandwagon he never quite jumped on), instead pulling out the sake straight away. He pours it in the pretty ceremonial porcelain he'd inherited from a very distant aunt and puts them on his low wooden table with care. He sinks down on one of the four cushions that surround the smooth wooden monstrosity that is also an heirloom (the same distant aunt) and lets the silence grow between him and his companion. Contrary to popular belief he is not always loud and Gai knows full well when silence is the preferred alternative to long, winding speeches about the virtues of youth and honour and diligence.

His eternal rival and closest friend is tired when he speaks, but he never quite loses that droll hipness that hangs about him like a cloud of bad perfume. Kakashi lifts his own cup of sake and gives it a weighty look. "Won't that corrupt Naru-the baby?"

Gai turns to glance at Naruto out of habit, content to see his son sleeping peacefully in his crib. He shifts his attention back to his friend and shakes his head, "his youthful day has tired him out, and I doubt anything but an outright invasion will wake him up now. What he doesn't know can't corrupt him."

The slip-up hovers between them, an elephant in his small living room that neither feel particularly pressed to discuss. He doesn't ask how Kakashi knew Naruto's name when only the Third, Gai, and those he informed personally are aware of that. Kakashi doesn't tell.

"So, how's the life of a single parent treating you?" Kakashi drawls instead, setting his untouched cup of sake down on the table.

No use softening his words, not now. "Badly. Naruto is a delight but-"

He downs his sake in a single swallow and lets his ceramic cup hit the table with a harsh _clank_. "-one more week and I'll start bashing heads in. The villagers hate him, loathe him even. I have been refused service in more shops than I care to keep count of and only the threat of demotion had one of the doctors give Naruto his check-up. The nurse at the desk refused to book us another appointment; she said monsters don't need to visit the hospital. I plan on taking it up to the Hokage should this behaviour continue. I understand mourning, Kakashi, every shinobi does. But this?"

Gai sighs. "This is beyond unyouthful, it is beyond words even. I'm giving it a week, this can't go on the way it is. I love Konoha with all my being and I love all the people that live in our glorious village. Never has this love been tested and strained as much as these last three weeks. Three weeks in which I have questioned every fibre of my being for still loving Konoha when it does not in turn love that what I hold most dear. When the good people of Konohagakure talk of murdering an infant boy, call him a monster and will celebrate the day he leaves this world."

Gai sneaks another glance at his sleeping baby. When he looks back it is to see that Kakashi hadn't moved during his little speech, but the narrowed eyes and tense way he holds his shoulders is enough of a tell.

"Maa-" his friend murmurs, "I wouldn't go about bashing in heads. What would your little charge think when he hears them call you 'the bloody beast of Konoha'?" He waves a hand and leans back against the wall behind his cushion, "tell me the when and where and I'll just have the pack go. A bunch of 'rabid' dogs running rampant through Konoha, killing a few merchants and shopkeepers before the gallant guardian of Konoha's jinchuuriki saves the day-"

There's a glint in the copy ninja's eyes that Gai doesn't like. Not at all.

"-with a lot of aid from his obviously superior partner, the legendary Kakashi."

"I'll send you the date should I decide on going on an unsanctioned and _most unyouthful_ killing spree," is what he answers.

"But really," Kakashi's voice is forceful, "talk to the Third about it. Or let me help you silently assassinate the ones that are giving you trouble. He doesn't deserve this."

He's looking at Naruto's sleeping from while he says it, but Gai is pretty sure it's not Naruto he's talking about.

 **FORTUNE**

 **act I**

The appointment with the Hokage is at noon and Gai spots a chuunin hurrying out of his office with a tray of empty bowls minutes before he is called in. The room is as he remembers is being the few times he'd been in there before, during the Yondaime's short reign; the only difference is that the Yondaime's photographs are missing. Pictures of him and his wife at various stages of his life, including one of her heavily pregnant.

The Yondaime's Uzumaki wife. The Yondaime with his brilliant blue eyes, second only to Naruto's own, and golden hair. How Kakashi, who was the Yondaime's sole suriving student, knew an 'unfamiliar' baby's name. A baby that looks like his late teacher. Gai is many things but not stupid, but he keeps quiet and shouts a -slightly overcompensating- loud greeting to the Sandaime instead. No one officially told him about Naruto's parentage and he won't talk unless they do. He gets it; he truly does, what with Iwa and all the other nations Namikaze Minato made to look like fools by single-handedly slaughtering their shinobi.

"Gai," Sandaime-sama's response is quiet but kind and he mentions for Gai to sit in the chair in front of the Hokage's desk.

He does, but not before unsealing the thick baby-blanket from his sealing scroll and placing Naruto's favourite toy (the promised stuffed tortoise that is a most brilliant shade of bright green with glorious orange spots) and then gently laying the boy himself on the cloth. He stays there, crouched over his little hurricane, for a while; checking if he's okay before leaving him to sit on the offered chair.

He felt the Hokage's heavy gaze on him the whole time. He doesn't say anything, just sits down.

"What is it you wanted to speak about with such urgency," Sandaime-sama asks, cutting straight to the chase. No useless frivolities, no how have you beens.

"Tomorrow is the one month anniversary of the Kyuubi attack," Gai begins his tale, "and I want you to revoke the law swearing everyone to secrecy about Naruto's status as a jinchuuriki. I also want you to give everyone a detailed explanation of how being a jinchuuriki does not make a child the bijuu he contains and how one-month old infants are not monsters."

He leaves out the 'if you don't I will start systematically decimating a good portion of Konoha's population' as well as the 'please'.

He spends over half an hour (which is longer than the time allotted to his appointment) detailing the incidents that occurred in one short month. The whispers he'd heard from both civilian and colleagues. The way he was treated at shops, the appalling treatment at the hospital and –most recently- the hostile reception and even weak killing intent aimed his way by lowly chuunin. Not a threat, not even close, but a worrying development nevertheless.

The Hokage's eyebrows had been arched in surprise at the first part of his account but they had steadily travelled downwards until they were nothing but a thick line over his weary eyes and it made the old man look even older and more grim than he was.

 **FORTUNE**

 **act I**

It is the one-month anniversary of the Kyuubi's attack on Konoha and Gai stands to the back with Naruto cradled protectively in his arms. His little boy is awake and blinking up at him with wide blue eyes and Gai indulges him by wriggling his fingers and making odd little noises for his enjoyment. The day chosen for the memorial couldn't have been any better, though perhaps the brightly shining sun and mellow temperature are a bit out of place on a day of mourning. He had finished his early morning training hours earlier, leaving Naruto in the capable hands of a trusted ANBU agent, but this he wants Naruto to bear witness to. Even though he won't remember any of it, Gai wants Naruto to be there on the day his short life might change forever. So there he is, standing to the back of the crowd while he waits for the Sandaime to make his appearance.

When the elderly Hokage does the crowd shushes and it seems even the gentle breeze dies down, taking the sun with it as clouds drift in from all sides; leaving the square both silent, sombre and shrouded in long shadows like a veiled widow in mourning.

"My good people of Konoha," the God of shinobi begins, "this time not a month ago I made a grievous mistake-"


	2. act I Infancy part deux

**Again, I take liberties with canon. I have made up my very own Hyuuga clan history. Also, _yes_ , I am omitting several things. For some reasonings, details and events you'll have to wait and see because I'll clear those up in future chapters.**

* * *

 **A C T I  
Infancy**

The Hokage ends his speech and silence reigns supreme on the square. No one moves, no one dares to as much as breathe, and then the impossible happens; the Hokage folds in half as he bows down slowly. It takes a moment but like a stone falling in a still river the ripples slowly edge outwards and the people on the ground bow too. Some remain standing, Gai notes with careful detachment, but they are few. The impossible has happened today, it seems, when the God of Shinobi bowed down to acknowledge a mere infant.

A second passes and the magic is lost as the sea of people in front of him rises as one, the Hokage straightening his back also. There are whispers scurrying through the square like rats, there but yet _not_. Too soft to make out yet an unmistakable stark contrast against the previous silence.

Gai is gone when the first people turn back to where he had stood before, Naruto bundled against his chest, leaving only a small cloud of dust trailing down gently.

 **FORTUNE**

 **act I**

Naruto smiles and Gai cries.

They are manly tears, tears of youth-filled joy, but they are tears nevertheless. He raises the blonde baby up in the air and just holds him there, staring up at the chubby face with the whiskers on his cheeks stretched wide by his brilliant, amazing, youthful smile.

He spends the whole day with him in his arms, cooing and cuddling and generally making a fool of himself just to see Naruto smile again. He does, four more times because Gai kept count, and Gai can't seem to leave him out of his sight. Afraid to miss a laugh, afraid to miss a milestone, a momentous moment of great importance, a happenstance of pure, unadulterated youth.

His son is going to grow up happy and loved and neither can ever be 'too much'. Naruto is not going to end up like Kakashi, both loving and hating a distant father and forever trying to regain the honour he thinks he is indebted to regain for his dead father's sake, nor will he grow up like Asuma; who feels joining the Guardian Ninja is the only way out from under his father's thumb.

Naruto is going to grow up laughing and happy and he'll kill anyone who'd dare try and prevent that.

 **FORTUNE**

 **act I**

Gai is a father first and a shinobi second. He used to be a shinobi first and, well, very little second, but priorities shift and ripple like water. Naruto comes first. Naruto has to come first.

The Hyuuga Compound is walled. Walls mean little to people, they can always be scaled or brought down. They mean even less to a shinobi when a single jump can vault you over them. But still it is walled. They are made of wood and carved with delicate scriptures, dragons fly and horses prance around the central carvings of the Hyuuga mark. It is as much a warning as a promise; here dwell the Hyuuga. Here dwell obscene amounts of money.

He knows that he has been watched the moment his feet carried him in the direction of the compound, even from several miles away, and thus is not surprised when the guards at the impressive stone entrance let him pass. It is like opening the Gate of Healing, when suddenly all becomes clear and focused and _new._ Such is the experience of walking into the Hyuuga's innermost sanctuary, where the sounds of Konoha proper are drowned out and replaced with only the delicately thin veneer of near silence. Birds call, water runs and leaves rustle. Here there is no rush, or so it seems, only propriety and poise.

A passing member of the branch house passes him by and inclines his head, long brown hair falling over his shoulders when he does so. Gai returns the gesture with a smile, something the other man lacks, and not a word is spoken.

Overhead a bird calls.

Naruto is silent is his arms, a most singular event these days when almost every waking hour is filled with his delightful prattle. Give his darling son a week and he'll be sprouting out his very first real words. But now he is as awestruck as Gai had been the first time he'd ever entered the place the second-largest clan of Konoha called home. He'd been a good dozen years older than his little golden-haired hurricane but the effect, it seems, is the same.

He follows the winding path past beautiful wooden houses and gardens so full of life it seems as if spring is eternal when outside the leaves are falling. He passes ponds filled with dozen of colourful koi and training fields where clan members dance and weave around one another with lethal grace. A tap, he knows, is all a Hyuuga needs to kill a man. Not strength, not force, not a razing jutsu of unequalled power. A mere tap to any of the important tenketsu and the opponent dies.

A guard lets him inside the main building in the centre of the massive compound and it is a masterful composure of shoji screens and calligraphy hung on the walls. There are flowers placed on small tables that Gai knows are chosen not only for their appearance but for their meaning also. This is where tradition flourishes while outside people are clamouring to keep up with time and the innovations that it brings. But not stagnancy, for the Hyuuga are nothing but an ever-flowing river.

"Gai-san," there is ice and fire in Hyuugha Hiashi's voice in equal measures, yin and yang embodied in the dispassionate visage that is the head of the Hyuuga clan.

"Hyuuga-sama," Gai responds. "Thank you for agreeing to meet with me."

"The pleasure is mine," a delicately decorated ride-paper panel slides back into the wall at a mere brush of his fingers and a formal sitting room is unveiled. "Please, do sit."

Hiashi sits down last, as befits a gracious host, and Gai cradles Naruto close to his chest. The cushions on the floor are soft and the flower arrangements as magnificent as those in the hallway but his sons eyes are not drawn to that. Instead he feels him crane his neck to gawk at the ceiling. The ceiling that, if Gai is correct, depicts the history of the Hyuuga clan. They are depicted as white-eyed nomads first, then as archers and warriors and then there is their mountain stronghold. The castle the clan called home before they joined the making of Konoha as one of its founding clans, not as the founding two but important nevertheless. The carvings are painted with vivid colours, a big shift from the subtle, understated tones the room itself favours.

"I do wonder," Hiashi murmurs, "what business it is you feel is imperative for me to know."

Naruto shifts and wiggles in his lap and Gai rearranges him without as much as a thought, the action now already second nature. "I would like to ask you to consider taking Naruto in should I die."

Hiashi might dance around and play with words, wielding them like a weapon and a lure. Gai doesn't.

There is no outward change in the older man's face. Not a muscle is out of place and yet the atmosphere changes.

"Very well," the response is unexpected but not unwelcome, "I will take care of young Naruto in the event of your death, unlikely as I hope it to be. In return, however-"

Gai leaves the Hyuuga compound knowing that no matter what, Naruto will be safe, and with the added burden of a different promise on his own shoulders.

 **FORTUNE**

 **act I**

On the outside snow is falling, coating the Village Hidden in the Clouds with a thick blanket of pearly white flakes. But inside the office the atmosphere is tense, heated even, tempers flaring where behind the glass water freezes and breath fogs.

The Raikage regards the cloth sack with distaste, the smell of blood is not what bothers him though. The hitai-ate inside are of his village, they checked, and the blood staining the cloth the metal is bound to is real too. But not the fate of the wearer or even just the fact that his shinobi were killed is what makes him _angry_.

The letter is.

 _From the personal collection of Hyuuga Hiashi,_ it reads in a delicate script.

 _Next time I'll send the heads along_ is written on the bottom of the paper, a post-script written in a completely different hand. A knows who wrote it and more importantly he knows _why_. It is a warning as much as a statement and the message hidden beneath the ink makes A want to rip the man's head from his shoulders with his bare hands.

The paper burns and burns and burns while the Raikage rages.


End file.
